Category: Climate politics

Thank you world

Cheatin Heartland Muriel Newman, former ACT MP and doyenne of the libertarian right in NZ, has finally returned from New York where her NZ CPR was one of the “sponsors” of the Heartland crank fest. In the middle of her detailed report on the event, she quotes approvingly from the conference opening speech [PDF] by Czech president Vaclav Kraus:

To date, the only European Union leader prepared to take a principled stand on the global warming controversy has been the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus. […] In his keynote address to the conference […] President Klaus, who is also the current President of the European Union, explained how the United Nations IPCC is a massive bureaucracy that is generously funded by those green businesses that have a great deal to gain from maintaining high levels of public fear over global warming alarmism. He also expressed his disappointment that no other leader was prepared to stand up against the propaganda: “A few weeks ago, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, I spent three hours at a closed session of about sixty people – heads of states and governments with several IPCC officials and ‘experts’ like Al Gore, Tony Blair and Kofi Annan. […] It was a discouraging experience. You looked around in vain to find at least one person who would share your views. There was no one. All the participants of the meeting took man-made global warming for granted, were convinced of its dangerous consequences and more or less competed in one special discipline – whether to suggest a 20, 30, 50 or 80% CO2 emissions cut as an agreed-upon, world-wide project. It was difficult to say anything meaningful and constructive.” (my emphasis).

That rather nicely illustrates my contention that the real world is getting on with dealing with the issue, while the cranks — even Presidential cranks — find themselves marginalised.

Thanks for drawing that to my attention Muriel. And thank you, world.

[World Party]

Visionary road maps

Here’s a way to map the climate change “debate” that goes a million miles beyond the simplistic for and against view beloved of sceptics and Climate Debate Daily. Click in the Flash animation above and you can access a Debategraph view of the issues around climate change (the buttons below allow you to access various map tools — the green button opens underlying information in a pop-up window). It’s a sort of cross between a mind map and a wiki, allowing you to add and develop ideas and viewpoints. Produced by Debategraph in collaboration with the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, the Open University’s Knowledge Media Institute, the IQ2 Green Festival on Climate Change and The Independent the idea is to build the map as a public, international resource in the run up to the crucial Copenhagen meeting in December. Click on the central “climate change” circle, and then the details viewer (green button) to read more). David Price, co-founder of Debategraph, explained in an email:

The goal is develop the map iteratively to a point at which it represents genuinely rich and comprehensive public resource; so any recommendations of people on the science and/or policy side who you think might be interested in the visualization approach and in contributing to the map will be very welcome.

I think this is a fascinating way to look at the issues around climate change — to map the arguments in a manner that conveys the complexity of the issue, and avoids the constant need to restate the obvious. Changes you make here at Hot Topic will be reflected at all other sites embedding the map. Have a play, explore, and let me know what you think in the comments. If there’s enough interest, I’ll embed the map in its own page so that it’s only one click away from the front page. Could be a fantastic tool, especially for PolSci students… 😉

[Stereolab]

(Six) Things on my mind

copenhagen.jpg The Copenhagen climate conference — Climate change: global risks, challenges & decisions — closed yesterday, and work has now begun on producing a summary document — scheduled for publication in June. In the meantime, delegates have drawn up a preliminary list of six key messages, which were handed to the Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the closing session. They are (in full, because I think they’re important and worth reading):

  1. Climatic trends: Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised. For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts. (my emphasis)
  2. Social disruption: The research community is providing much more information to support discussions on “dangerous climate change”. Recent observations show that societies are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities particularly at risk. Temperature rises above 2ºC will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with, and will increase the level of climate disruption through the rest of the century.
  3. Long-term strategy: Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid “dangerous climate change” regardless of how it is defined. Weaker targets for 2020 increase the risk of crossing tipping points and make the task of meeting 2050 targets more difficult. Delay in initiating effective mitigation actions increases significantly the long-term social and economic costs of both adaptation and mitigation. (my emphasis)
  4. Equity dimensions: Climate change is having, and will have, strongly differential effects on people within and between countries and regions, on this generation and future generations, and on human societies and the natural world. An effective, well-funded adaptation safety net is required for those people least capable of coping with climate change impacts, and a common but differentiated mitigation strategy is needed to protect the poor and most vulnerable.
  5. Inaction is inexcusable: There is no excuse for inaction. We already have many tools and approaches – economic, technological, behavioural, management – to deal effectively with the climate change challenge. But they must be vigorously and widely implemented to achieve the societal transformation required to decarbonise economies. A wide range of benefits will flow from a concerted effort to alter our energy economy now, including sustainable energy job growth, reductions in the health and economic costs of climate change, and the restoration of ecosystems and revitalisation of ecosystem services.
  6. Meeting the challenge: To achieve the societal transformation required to meet the climate change challenge, we must overcome a number of significant constraints and seize critical opportunities. These include reducing inertia in social and economic systems; building on a growing public desire for governments to act on climate change; removing implicit and explicit subsidies; reducing the influence of vested interests that increase emissions and reduce resilience; enabling the shifts from ineffective governance and weak institutions to innovative leadership in government, the private sector and civil society; and engaging society in the transition to norms and practices that foster sustainability.

This seems to me a very good summary of the climate problem: it’s worse than we thought, we need to act now, and we’ve got the tools to do it. Now all we need is the willpower and the commitment. Politicians, are you listening? Inaction is inexcusable.

[Edgar Broughton]

Tangled up in blue (first reprise)

Key.jpgThe government’s demolition of New Zealand’s climate policy is continuing apace. This week, as part of cost-cutting and restructuring at the Ministry for Environment, they have chopped the carbon neutral public service programme. This comes on top of Gerry Brownlee’s removal of the moratorium on new thermal generation, the curious case of the ETS scheme that’s on hold and yet being reintroduced at the same time, and prime minister John Key’s apparent lack of conviction about the severity of climate change. Commenting on the changes at MfE, environment minister Nick Smith offered these pearls of wisdom (Stuff):

“It’s not government policy that we should move to a carbon neutral public service. That was a cheap slogan from the previous government. I’ve heard awful stories of senior public servants … spending an hour on how they might reorganise their rubbish.”

Smith appears happy to decide policy based on hearsay. Not a good look for a senior politician. The carbon neutral public service (CNPS) scheme was never going to make a huge difference to New Zealand’s emissions, but it was a way for the apparatus of government to show that it was taking the problem seriously. By acting — and crucially, purchasing goods and services — with lower carbon emissions in mind, it was sending a useful economic signal into the world beyond Wellington. Take that signal away, and the message is all too clear. The Department of Conservation will also be left in the lurch, as a number of their trial native bush regeneration for carbon offset schemes were earmarked for the CNPS.

Another worrying sign is that Smith has appointed a former Business NZ climate policy analyst to his political team. According to Carbon News, George Riddell played a key role in developing Business NZ’s climate and emissions trading policy — which is currently to delay implementing the ETS to 2013.

Put all this together and you get a very clear impression of a government that does not have a real grasp of the danger of climate change, or the need to implement coherent climate policy. Worse, they give every impression of being in the pockets of the big emitters and big business interests. So far, all the new government has done is to pull down the climate policy of the last administration, but has given no hint of what it might put in its place.

It’s high time John Key and Nick Smith stopped playing politics and started taking this issue seriously. A coherent statement of their appreciation of the size of the problem and the policy levers they intend pulling might be a good place to start.

[KT Tunstall, and very good indeed…]

Juggling science and denial

In light of Charles Chauvel’s parliamentary question — brought to our attention yesterday in a comment — I thought I should buy a copy of Investigate magazine (against the grain though it goes) and have a look at the John Key interview. 

Investigate‘s question, was, as might be expected, heavily loaded, talking about the “fast becoming…open revolt in the scientific community about whether humans are contributing significantly to global warming at all,” and asking what care is being taken “to ensure that climate change theory is accurate and how New Zealand is going to be affected if it is wrong?”

Continue reading “Juggling science and denial”